(Quebec) Contrary to the Ethics Commissioner, Premier François Legault does not believe that the constituency employees paid by the National Assembly carried out partisan work during their working hours.
Posted at 3:18 p.m.
“First, it’s done in addition to regular hours. It’s like that in all parties. It is certain that the employees of the various political parties are also militants who work in addition to their regular hours to militate for a party. So no hour was stolen from the National Assembly,” explained the Prime Minister on Tuesday during a press scrum at the National Assembly.
On Thursday, Commissioner Ariane Mignolet said she was “highly concerned” about the use of public funds for partisan purposes by the CAQ: her investigation showed that constituency employees had been given the mandate to design a media placement plan with a view to The electoral campaign.
“I am deeply concerned about the extent of state assets and services that may be, or may have been, used for this purpose,” she wrote. She was talking about hundreds of hours of work.
Mr. Legault does not agree with this finding. “Someone can work an hour for the CAQ, then work three hours of overtime the same day. What is important to mention, the employees work very hard, work all the hours for which they are paid by the Assembly, but in addition work as an activist,” he said.
Caquiste whip Éric Lefebvre also received the wrath of Mr.and Mignolet: he violated the code of ethics because he did not ensure that “the equipment and email addresses of his staff members, as well as their working time, are only used for activities related to the exercise of his charge”. Training offered during office hours set election goals.
In this case, Mr. Legault acknowledged that Mr. Lefebvre committed a fault. “All the employees of the different political parties are also activists. It is important to separate the two functions. When one is employed, one is employed by everyone, when one is militant one works for a party. There was a mistake made by the whip to confuse the two functions,” he said.
No refund
However, he does not believe that this fault requires reimbursement. “I don’t think it cost anything. People who work as whips and in county offices put in a lot of hours for citizens […] “, he said.
“There have been no public funds, no public funds ever in the history of the CAQ and there will never be any in the history of the CAQ,” insisted Mr. Legault.
When the CAQ was in opposition, it had nevertheless denounced this kind of practice. In 2017, MP Éric Caire even accused the Parti Québécois of committing “genuine embezzlement”, because employees of the parliamentary wing of this party had been caught doing partisan work. MP Donald Martel had demanded a full refund of the sums.